In July 2001, red rain fell over Kerala in India shortly after reports of a meteor. When analysed, this red rain appeared to contain red cells, apparently demonstrating that such cells must exist in space and that the theory of panspermia is correct. However, doubts have been expressed about whether reports of a meteor were merely a coincidence. This paper examines historical and mythical accounts of red rain, to establish if these, too, show a connection with meteors.

Greg, R.P. (1861). A Catalogue of Meteorites and Fireballs, from A.D.2 to A.D.1860. In Report of the Thirtieth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Oxford, June and July 1860. John Murray, London.

O'Donovan, J. (ed. and transl.) (1848–51). Annala Rioghachta Eireann: Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters from the Earliest Period to the Year 1616. Volume 3: Translation. John Hodges & Smith, Dublin.

Palazzo, L. (1901). A rain of bird blood. Popular Sci. News35, 104.

Pliny, (1st Century AD). Historia Naturalis, Book II, LVII. Translated by Rackham, H. (1949). Pliny. Natural History, With an English Translation in Ten Volumes, vol. 1, Books I and II. Loeb Classical Library. William Heinemann Ltd, London and Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Wilde, W.R.W. (1856). Table of cosmical phenomena, epizootics, epiphitics, famines, and pestilences in Ireland. Census of Ireland for the Year 1851, part v. (Republished as Coates, T. (2002). The Irish Book of Death and Flying Ships. Tim Coates, London and New York.)